In our first house we had one level, and W/D near the garage entry. Next and current house is 2-story with laundry room on 2nd floor, and I love it. But, it just depends on how you live and how you actually "do" your laundry. For us, by that time, our girls were school-aged. So I was not tending a baby and folding lots of little baby things. The upstairs is just great since the laundry is in the middle of the hall, with baths and BR's on either end, so all linens and clothes just go there. You can dash and get something from the dryer to put on, or a warm towel. I don't think it's as simple as "where you spend your time" with the exception of watching small children, but maybe more about how you attack the clean clothes, and whether you have bedrooms on 2 floors or all upstairs. Or maybe as pointed out, if you do 10 loads of laundry in one day, you then are having a real laundry project, like a cooking project, and tending it most of the day. So those habits and preferences will affect what works best. I spread my laundry loads throughout the week, and so tending 1 or 2 loads in a given evening overlaps with other trips up or down stairs to do other things. With the upstairs laundry, I bring a hamper to my room and fold clothes and towels and put them directly in the closets/drawers. I may use the bed to make piles of folded stuff. I listen to radio or talk with my husband or just, you know, think deep thoughts. (Girls (esp in past years) take hampers to room and who knows what they do then? Not my problem). There is room in the laundry to fold there, so I might do some towels there, but otherwise I don't, since I would then have to just stack stuff in hamper and bring back and dig out again. So, I prefer my current system to an off-the kitchen system in which I'd haul stuff upstairs or fold stuff on the sofa. I don't have a mudroom and wish I did. I think that definitely influences laundry gameplans, since then you have other advantages of the mudroom and how your organize the flow of clothes and stuff. If one or more family members have to deal with dirty work clothes/uniforms, or maybe just active kids and sports stuff, that can be an advantage if you are organizing the clothes and shoes off upon entry. I guess you have to put on a robe or something to come trouping through the living room after stripping? But for those who have less frequent "toxic" clothes, you could just have a drop-off hamper at the entry point. I think it's less universal than kitchen design, which while still very personal, has the somewhat universal issues of work triangles and door-openings and things for the basic layout, and then moves on to more preference-based issues for how and where you eat, do homework, watch TV.

After 3 days of searching the internet, looking at prices, reading forums, reading reviews and generally confusing myself, I now turn to you the people for help. I have an upper floor laundry, with a slow leaking washer that I would like to replace. Good old traditional top load, non efficient 90's model which has finally started to slowly leak (probably a seal) and so rather than spend X dollars for fixing and no guarantee to say it can't happen again in the future, I would like to buy new. I am already paranoid about the washer and the dryer, new would make me feel better. So I am looking for a pair, I have NO preference for top load, front load, stackable, non stackable, I just want clean clothes and a quiet machine 27" wide. I don't want weird smells, or strange residues, I don't want models that have issues 30 days later and bad customer service. Any suggestions?

@Patricia Colwell @ci_lantro If you ever wanted to know what happened with this project, I kind of forgot to update. I'm not sure hiring a professional was right for this job as you would have needed a plumber or handyman skilled with second floor laundry who have seen this setup before or they would have been guessing just like us We were fortunate to carefully fix it up ourselves. We cut through the metal around the "drain" to preserve it (glad we did!) and removed the rest of the decaying pan. We worked with what was there to find an inspection panel and a drain. Unfortunately the drain was really clogged and we spent a good amount of time working on and cleaning the drain to get it working. Whoever installed it (or clogged it) previously was not confident in it as we found an old shirt tied around the pipe. We got a smaller pan from Killarney Metals that did the job we needed even if just for the washer (sturdy and smaller in front for a pull out drawer). We had to custom make (including metal shaving) our own flange and inner pipe to original pipe setup. We also re-did the walls and floor. We also caulked around the trim for extra protection. In case anyone ever finds this later and maybe needs the outcome.

As Joe said no drain needed unless the laundry room is on the 2nd floor you will install the pan with it. The pipe can burst anywhere if a toilet overflows you not gonna start putting floor drains into the bathroom. Here is an example it happened to one of my customers, the nut on the toilet bowl cracked on the 2nd floor while they were away, flooded the entire house (2 floors +finished basement) 100k in damage. I can give you a few more horror stories when the metal dishwasher hose bursts on it's own without the appliance being in running mode. The moral of the story is and it's everyone should keep in mind that when going away to shut the main water valve off near the meter and never run dishwashers or washers when you going out and no one will be home. Most importantly check the water lines under the sinks from time to time, being in this business you come across base cabinets when people keep stuffing stuff under there and at times the lines get damaged or kinked, etc and it's only a matter of time before they burst. Good luck